Letting an AI agent spend your money has been the step most people would not take. OpenAI's answer is ChatGPT Wallet, a payment feature for its Dots agents that keeps a person in the loop for every purchase. It matters because shopping is where agents stop being a curiosity and start touching your bank balance.
The mechanics, as The Verge, CNBC and OpenAI's own material describe them: you add a card once, and when a Dots agent wants to buy something it shows you the items, the total and the card. You approve with Face ID or a fingerprint. The agent never sees your real card number. It pays with a network payment token, the same idea behind Apple Pay and Google Wallet, so neither the agent nor the shop holds your details. OpenAI built it with American Express, Mastercard and Visa, and says card rewards and dispute protections still apply.
Access is narrow for now. It is rolling out in the US to ChatGPT Pro subscribers aged 18 and over with eligible US-issued cards and a US billing address. Reports differ on where it works: OpenAI's announcement mentions agents in ChatGPT Work and Codex, but its help pages say it is only in Dots for the moment. According to CNBC, OpenAI is not taking a cut of purchases yet. Its stated aim is for users to hand purchases over entirely within limits they set, such as spending caps, categories or time windows.
The harder problem sits on the other side of the checkout. Many retailers block agents outright; Amazon shut out Meta's Muse agents earlier this year. OpenAI's partner guidance asks sites to allow verified ChatGPT browser traffic and to tune fraud systems so genuine agent orders are not flagged. This is the same contest playing out in Amazon's plans to own product data, and it will decide whether agents like Dots can actually buy from the places you shop.
Per-purchase approval with biometrics is a sensible default, but it also removes most of the time saved: if you check every basket, the agent is a research assistant with a payment button. The riskier step is the promised move to pre-approved spending, and OpenAI has not said how it will handle an agent that buys the wrong thing within the limits you set.